I'm a Gen X working mom who tried TikTok's 'Bare Minimum Monday' trend, and it's harder than it looks

• "Bare Minimum Monday" is the latest TikTok trend to slink into the workplace.
• The idea is to eliminate the "Sunday scaries" and lower stress by taking it easy on Mondays.

When I first heard about "Bare Minimum Monday," the latest TikTok trend to slink into the workplace, I thought it was ridiculous.

Marisa Jo Mayes, the millennial startup founder who sparked the viral sensation, promotes it as a way to prioritize self-care and "reject hustle culture." Her TikTok posts offer glimpses of how she takes it easy on Mondays by, for instance, curling her hair, making elaborate iced coffees, and playing a variation of mini Boggle. It all looked a bit precious and entitled.

Besides, how does one blow off work for an entire day, week after week? It seems brazen, even in the era of "quiet quitting." As a "work hard, play hard" Gen Xer, that's not how I'm wired.

Part of me might have been a little jealous of ol' Mayes. Renouncing my start-of-the-week to-do list sounded dreamy. As a 40-something working mom of two school-age kids, I'm conditioned to neurotically squeeze out productivity from every working hour. Allotting just the right amount of time to each meeting and task, while leaving room for the afternoon carpool, dinner prep, and homework help, is my own "self-care priority."

To be clear: I'm not someone who lives to work. I like what I do, but I value my downtime. But I'm busy, so when it's time to work, I work. Otherwise I can't get it all done.

But as Bare Minimum Monday gathered steam and media mentions, my editor suggested I give it a try and then write about it — you know, for work. In the sacred name of Hunter S. Thompson, I accepted the assignment. I soon found out that Bare Minimum Monday was harder than it looked.

DIY Bare Minimum Monday

Mayes, a startup founder, once suffered from debilitating "Sunday scaries," she told Insider's Sarah Jackson.

But after she gave herself "permission to do the absolute bare minimum for work" on Mondays, "it was like some magic spell came over" her, she said.

For working parents, the Sunday scaries are no joke. They relate to our jobs, sure, but also to the crush of the school week and our kids' sports and extracurricular activities, as well as the schedule of our partner, if we have one.

Without a relatively productive Monday, the rest of my workweek — and life — turns fubar.

That helps explain why for me, Bare Minimum Monday started on Sunday afternoon. I'd ordinarily spend it zombie-scrolling Page Six and playing word games on my phone. But I needed to plan ahead for my day of laborless lassitude.

One of the biggest workday pressures for parents is dinner. This Monday happened to be one of the few weeknights my family would eat together, and I didn't take that programming miracle for granted.

So on Sunday evening, my husband and I poured ourselves some wine and whipped up a batch of soup for Monday night's meal. Mind you, we simultaneously made that night's dinner, which was extra work, but it was the weekend and our moods were lighter. Plus, we used our immersion blender, which we love. We're middle-aged; we can't help it.

Sunday scaries? Not with Monday's dinner already made.

Removing unnecessary pressure and unrealistic expectations

Bare Minimum Monday is not so much a practice as it is a mindset.

"For anyone interested in trying it, pay attention to where you're putting unnecessary pressure on yourself or setting unrealistic expectations," Mayes told Insider.

On Mondays, she eliminates meetings, limits her technology use, and removes tasks that aren't urgent from her to-do list, instead aiming to accomplish two to three important ones.

I could've convinced my editor that I needed to miss our daily meeting for journalism's sake. But I was determined to do a realistic version of Bare Minimum Monday. Most working stiffs can't abandon all meetings for their well-being. So I attended that one, plus a couple of others on my calendar.

Next, I figured out my all-important tasks for the day: reaching out to sources for a story idea and making an outline for an upcoming LinkedIn live event. I checked off both by lunchtime. Time to relax!

Not doing work at work is hard

Having an amorphous blob of an afternoon should have been liberating, but, I admit, I found it stressful.

You see, Gen Xers, like me, tend to take a puritanical approach to our jobs and treat our organizations as though we're indentured servants. I'm not saying this is healthy, of course. Our first bosses were baby boomers who bred in us a need to be devoted to our employers. It's not that we're especially ambitious; it's how we were trained.

Turns out, not working when you're supposed to be working is difficult. I went for a walk in my neighborhood. I listened to a podcast. I picked up a crusty baguette to pair with the soup. It was nice, but I felt guilty.

When I returned home, I was adrift. Thinking about my week gave me anxiety: articles I needed to write, interviews I needed to schedule, Daughter One's upcoming soccer tournament (did her new shin guards arrive?), Daughter Two's upcoming school play (did I say I'd help with the bake sale?), my husband's weeklong work trip (did he dole out his share of the carpool?). My skin started to itch.

I checked my email on impulse, and my queries from the morning yielded a promising lead. Did I have time to hop on a quick call to discuss? You bet!

I cracked open my laptop to reply just as my teenager arrived home from practice.

"I thought this was supposed to be 'Bare Minimum Monday,'" she said, deadpan.

I'd told her about my experiment the night before at dinner. She rarely registers things about my life — she's a teenager, after all, and self-absorption is her MO. But perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised that my resident TikTok aficionado remembered that I was trying this trend — or in her mind, trying to be cool.

"It is," I said. "I just have to do this one little email."

My daughter shot me a look of withering contempt, the way only a teenage girl can.

I sighed remembering Mayes' gentle admonitions. I thought: "What can I choose not to care about today? Where can I choose to be nicer to myself?"

I went to the fridge and got out the Tupperware of soup. The email could wait until tomorrow.